I've spent the last week speaking to doctors from major hospitals across Pakistan.. All of them were really worried that the country's healthcare system will soon be overwhelmed by Coronavirus patients, after seeing a substantial rise in cases since lockdown was eased 2 week ago 
In Karachi, official data shows there is only a handful of ICU beds for Covid patients free across all dedicated hospitals, some days as few as 3... That's for a city of around 15 million people
New Covid hospitals are being built in Karachi, but that pressure explains - in part - why local officials there have clashed with Imran Khan's government over whether or not lockdown restrictions should continue. His argument of course - that poor people would suffer too much
There's pressure elsewhere too, at the Mayo hospital in Lahore a doctor told me he had to refuse a patient who needed a ventilator because none were available - the patient had already been rejected by two other hospitals
Govt officials insist there is capacity in other hospitals - so I'm not clear why these ICUs are so full... doctors seem a little sceptical of the claims. Let's see how the app the Govt is launching making the data public works: thenews.com.pk/latest/668344-…
The other big issue seems conspiracy theories: that the WHO is paying doctors to kill patients or declare them Covid sufferers. These rumours have contributed to violent incidents when a patient has died... Anger at a lack of resources and panic over the rumours mixing together
Final thought, Pakistan's death toll - compared to the West remains low per million of population. And graveyard burial data from Karachi for the month of May doesn't show an abnormally large number of deaths - suggesting uncounted deaths aren't (yet) statistically significant
It's possible this trend of lower deaths will continue (younger population etc), but the low number of ICU beds means hospitals will still be overwhelmed... Eg.g this study says PK has few ICUs than others in region medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
Thanks to all the doctors who spoke to me, you can read the report here: bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi… oh and to clarify first tweet should’ve read lockdown was eased last month, surge in cases began to be noticed in last 2 weeks
